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Facebook Messenger and Heads Up take top slots in Apple’s most popular iOS app lists

Apple has released the list of this year’s most popular iOS apps, with Facebook’s Messenger app and Warner Bros.’ Heads Up! game taking the top spots on the free and paid charts, respectively. The freemium Clash of Clans was the top grossing app of 2014.

Social networks claimed all of the top five free spots, with Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram coming in behind Messenger. Between the main Facebook client, Messenger, and Instagram, the social networking company managed to capture the majority of the top five slots.

On the paid side of things, games seemed to win out, though a few utilities managed to sneak into the top five as well. Minecraft — Pocket Edition took second place, the Afterlight photo editor grabbed third, the popular Plague Inc. game wound up in fourth, and Sleep Cycle alarm clock rounded out the top five.

Games also managed to grab most of the top five highest-grossing positions, but in an interesting twist, all but a single app on this chart ended up being a freemium offering. As noted above, Clash of Clans topped this chart, with Candy Crush Saga, the Kate Upton-backed Game of War – Fire Age, Pandora streaming radio, and Big Fish Casino following.

You can see the complete lineup of apps over on the iTunes Store.

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Comments

  1. Not sure what most popular nor highest grossing have to do with “Best”

    • Surfer (@exsurfer) - 9 years ago

      I agree with Bruno. Best implies quality. Popular could imply simple download numbers. And of course Facebook messenger would be tops since it is a free app for a service that has a billion plus users.

  2. Mike Hanson - 9 years ago

    FACEBOOK MESSENGER!

    The most popular app to have an overwhelmingly awful review average!

  3. Surfer (@exsurfer) - 9 years ago

    And I forgot to mention Afterlight…I have downloaded and paid for nearly 50 photo editing apps…I just can’t get on board with Afterlight…the organization and feature set is not great. But I still keep it on my phone.

    Aviary is fantastic and a great value especially after Adobe bought them and offered all of their goodies for free. However, there are SO MANY extras now, the navigation needs to be updated to get to them. But Aviary is really the best one-stop-shop for photos.

    Best app for taking photos is ProCamera 8; fantastic. And for adding some decent and unique stles to your photos, Mextures is stunning.

  4. Forcing users to download an app ought to disqualify it from being in any “popular” list. It’s not popular, it’s simply a necessity.

    • Water is a necessity. So is food now that I think about it. I’m going to go on a limb and say Facebook Messenger isn’t, or flat out say Facebook is not a necessity. if it makes your life that much easier, then use an alternative like Fuse.

  5. Tech News & Review - 9 years ago

    Facebook Messenger to be a good app and most people choose to use after Facebook turn off the message feature on its Facebook app. So people must to download Facebook Messager to use for send message to friends.

  6. Superman (@Codiwin) - 9 years ago

    I deleted both apps back to browser bookmark app because Facebook is forcing this stupid app on all users! NO thank you i don’t need this!

  7. Superman (@Codiwin) - 9 years ago

    Sure it will get popular when you force everyone to use it! but it doesn’t mean we like it!!

  8. Superman (@Codiwin) - 9 years ago

    The share location button is placed in away that %99 of a time you will hit it by accident to share your location! i don’t want to share my location why do we even need it?? Facebook love to get your location for some reason!

  9. Arafat El Aljazira - 9 years ago

    i use Facebook messanger a lot due to family in Europe. how does Facebook makes money?